AMEX CLI advice

[Anonymous]

@ccquestthat was a typo. My total utilization is $17.00 out of $49K. I've always kept it at 1%. 

[ccquest]

Just saw the other part about wanting to take out a loan for med school...if you can avoid it, I certainly would. Take the advantage of having your parents in a great position to help and use that to kickstart your future after med school. You can put everything into retirement/investment savings and then be the best son you can be without being in ridiculous debt for the first 5-10 years of your post-med school life. On the plus side, if you do go with federal loans, you can just pay the minimums and get it all forgiven in 20 years anyway, just make sure you have the tax fee ready.

[Anonymous]

Thank you @ccquest , my Dad who is a surgeon told me that being in that much debt after med school is hard to overcome. I do have a 529 that has paid for all of my undergrad and will cover majority of grad school. I appreciate the advice. 😊

[ccquest]

Yeah my girlfriend finished this year with $450k total. If she can get them refinanced to a low enough rate, we could see it being paid off in 10 years or so, but that's paying 4-6k a month just towards student loans. The school financial advisor suggested she save the difference and just pay minimums on the loans (around $1200-1500 depending on income with REPAYE), swap to PAYE after 18 years (aka 1-2 years before forgiveness) and then have a nest egg to pay off the taxes from the forgiven amount.

My own loans are $1200 a month combined, but I'll be done in 8 years max.

[Anonymous]

@ccquest it's amazing how much education costs. My Dad had to take out a loan too & it took him a long time to pay it off! 

[Anonymous]

So an update to my CLI request - instant denial with a 7-10 day letter. 😔

[ccquest]

Guess that you're unfortunate answer for now on the maximum exposure with AMEX. If you want to test it more, after a denial you can ask again 91 days later.

Sorry on the denial.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @ccquest. They use Experian which is my lowest score (715). EQ and TU are both 785. Reasons are low score & too many consumer accounts (credit cards?). I have 5 from Amex, 3 Citi, 1 Discover, Nordstrom Visa & PayPal MC. I do concur that I have too many but closing them will sink my score so I will just let everything be & just wait for auto cli's for the next 2 years. 

[ccquest]

There's no damage in doing the CLI request yourself though, with denials just ask again every 3 months. They usually look at the score they show under the dashboard (EX FICO 8).

If the cards serve a purpose, keep them. If they don't, you can get rid of them now as long as they aren't your oldest account. With your 1% util, I'm not seeing that closing them would have much of an effect.

[Jnbmom]

@Anonymous 

Sorry for the denial been there done that 😞

No harm no foul you can try again down the road .

Good luck on you MCATs how excitig😊